


False Dawn

by moonbobjohnson



Category: True Detective
Genre: 5+1 Things, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2020-09-24 15:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20360578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbobjohnson/pseuds/moonbobjohnson
Summary: Roland doesn't generally invite over folks involved in ongoing investigations to his place, but he starts to make a habit of it for Tom.(Five times Tom stayed the night at Roland’s place, and one night Roland stayed the night at Tom’s.)





	1. November 1980 (Midnight)

“Christ,” Roland mutters to himself as a long drop of blood drips and splatters onto the rain-soaked carpeting in his doorway. He kicks the front door shut behind them. “Just sit down over here, man. Alright?”

The warmth of his apartment is a welcome change from the storm brewing outside. Trust Tom Purcell to go get his ass kicked by the man fucking his wife on the night of a rainstorm. _Man’s got no luck but bad luck,_ Roland thinks as he guides Tom to the kitchen table. Tom sways as he wrangles him out of his rain-dappled jacket before pulling out a chair.

Tom collapses onto it, sprawling haphazardly and in danger of tumbling off onto the floor. He’s staring down at the fresh blood that’s run its way down his chin and onto his shirt sleeve with wet, confused eyes, like he’s only just now realized his nose is bleeding. It’d been dry up until Roland had gone to help him out of the passenger seat — one drunken misstep and Tom had slammed his nose right into Roland’s shoulder, setting it off all over again. Roland sighs as he digs out the darkest dishtowel available from the kitchen drawer. He doesn’t generally make a habit of inviting over folks involved in ongoing investigations, but his cases also don’t generally revolve around child murder and grieving parents getting their asses kicked at dingy bars this late at night. He thinks of the Purcell house and how its interior seems to be falling apart alongside its inhabitants; he wouldn’t want to sleep there either.

“Here, c’mon,” he says, pressing the towel into Tom’s hand. He’s close enough to smell the coppery scent of spilled blood on him. When Tom doesn’t move, he guides his hand up to his nose. “Keep it there ‘til the bleeding stops.”

Tom slurs something under his breath, only made more unintelligible by the dishtowel now held tight to his nose. Roland busies himself with shrugging out of his own coat and grabbing the kitchen wastebasket from under the sink. 

“You need to throw up, you do it in there, okay? Or the bathroom’s down the hall to the right.” Roland says as he sets it beside Tom’s chair. He tosses his wet coat onto the back of the armchair. “Me and my floor’d appreciate it.”

Tom grunts in what might be confirmation as he lets his head slump forward onto his chest, rumbling out a shaky sigh.

“Keep it up,” Roland reminds him, eyeing the blood caked into his mustache. “It’ll get the bleeding to stop quicker.”

Tom’s eyes open into slow, wary slits as Roland tips his head back up with a thumb on his chin. He doesn’t fight it though, just lets his head be lifted, pulling his gaze upwards with it. He stares past Roland at the kitchen wall, eyes half-lidded and gone shadowed with exhaustion.

“I know,” Tom grumbles, voice still hard to comprehend in its roughness. “Kids had enough nosebleeds. Fell off those damn bikes ‘bout a hundred times before they got the hang of it.”

There’s nothing to be said in response to that. Roland pulls up the chair opposite Tom and drags the ashtray over to himself. He digs his crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jeans and lights up, smoking in silence as Tom sits motionless across from him. It’s hard to imagine Tom in happier times, teaching his kids how to ride the bikes that they’d one day disappear on, but there must’ve been some good times, even if it was about his kids and not so much his dour wife. It’s hard to imagine Tom happy at all when it’s past midnight and he’s slumped in drunken silence at Roland’s kitchen table with a bruise darkening beneath his eye.

“If your nose is done bleeding, we can get you set up on the couch,” Roland says as he stands and crushes his cigarette out.

Tom drops the bloody dishtowel into the kitchen sink before shuffling his way over to sit on Roland’s couch. He hunches over, resting his elbows heavy on his knees, hanging his head, still looking a little queasy in a way that makes Roland nervous for his living room carpet. Roland fills a glass of tap water to place on the coffee table, setting the wastebasket on the floor alongside it.

“You need an aspirin or anything?” Roland asks.

Tom keeps his eyes on his own bruised hands as he shakes his head. “Nah.”

Roland considers him for a moment, before pushing back up from his armchair. He startles, glancing back as Tom’s cold fingers clutch tight at his sleeve. Something like terror is spilling into his expression. His eyes are watering again as he looks up at Roland. 

“Wait—”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Roland soothes, holding up his hands. “I’m just gonna grab you a blanket, ‘kay?”

There’s the quick flash of embarrassment across Tom’s face before he drops his hand and hangs his head low again. He nods. Roland keeps his ears open as he digs through his hallway cabinet, in case Tom starts hyperventilating or panicking left alone on his couch for a few minutes. Before, he wouldn’t have expected Tom to reach out to anyone, last of all him. He hadn’t taken kindly to anything he and Wayne’d done since the start. Maybe it was the booze. Or, he supposes, the stages of grief. _Anger comes first, right?_ He pulls out a spare blanket and a couple decorative throw pillows his mom gifted him a few Christmases back. He shakes them free of dust before carrying them out to set on the couch next to Tom, who’s still staring down at his hands. Roland plants himself back in his armchair.

“You ain’t tired after all that shit?” Roland asks when Tom makes no move to lie down. He eyes the dark shadows that hang permanent beneath Tom’s eyes, the exhausted pallor of his skin. “Hell of a night.”

Tom breathes out a tired laugh that’s more of a sigh. “Wish I could sleep. Always tired but can’t seem to stay asleep for more’n an hour or so at a time.”

They fall back into not talking, no sound but the wind blowing outside and the slow drip of rain from the roof gutter, the storm having lulled. Roland considers flipping on the television set, but thinks better of it. Too many things that could set Tom off — late-night news talking the Purcell case to death, cop shows, commercials with happy children and their smiling parents. He can hardly just leave the man sitting there in silence, caught up in the loop of his own thoughts, but it ain’t like they got anything they could talk about that wouldn’t just drag up the exact shit Tom doesn’t need to be thinking of. _How’s your week been, Mr. Purcell? Been up to anything much? Me, I’ve been busy beating the local kiddie diddlers in hopes one of them is responsible for your missing kid._ Roland forces back a sigh and leans over to fish amongst the clutter on the corner table until he finds the deck of playing cards he keeps there. Sometimes, solitaire was what he resorted to when he needed to clear his own mind. Tom’s gaze slides to follow the motion as Roland shakes the cards out of their cardboard box and shuffles them.

“C’mon,” Roland says as he deals them out, “it’ll bore you to sleep if nothing else.”

Tom shrugs and slides forward on the couch, holds out a hand for Roland to put his cards in. They play mostly in silence, the kitchen clock ticking off the time as it passes. Roland only gets up once to switch on the heater when Tom starts to shiver. They keep up the cards until Tom finally cracks into a long yawn, his eyelids drooping with the force of it.

“Ready to give sleep a go?” Roland asks, setting his hand of cards down.

Tom sighs and fiddles with his own cards. Shrugs again.

“Something on your mind, Mr. Purcell?”

“Just…just I hate being in that house,” Tom says, hunching in on himself. “Can’t hardly stand it.”

“I suppose having Lucy around doesn’t help much in that regard,” Roland says carefully, knowing it’s risky to bring up Tom’s wife after he’s just picked a bar fight over her.

“Lucy—” Tom mumbles, flinching, “Lucy won’t barely even look at me nowadays. I may as well be alone in that house. I tried to just put an arm around her and she pulled away and looked at me like—like I might’ve well’ve done it myself.”

“Hey, that ain’t on you. She’s just looking for someone to put the blame on,” Roland says. “It’s a hard thing. It’s easier if there’s somebody around to blame for it. Even if it ain’t the right person.”

Tom nods, mutters, “I just don’t wanna be alone. Not now.”

“You’re not,” Roland tells him, reaching out a hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

At the touch of Roland’s fingertips, Tom startles and lifts his head. His face is dry, but his eyes are still swollen and red. His expression is as miserable as ever.

“You go on and get some rest. I’ll be here,” Roland reassures him. “Until you’re asleep. Alright?”

Tom nods. His hands are still shaky as he pulls off his work boots and slides down onto the couch, tugging the spare blanket over himself. Roland watches him get settled before grabbing a paperback from the corner table. Figures if he at least pretends to read, Tom won’t feel like he’s hovering. He flips through the pages, eyes skimming the print more than actually reading the words. It takes a good ten pages before Tom’s breathing deepens as he drifts off. When he shows no signs of reawakening, Roland stands and slips into the kitchen. Pouring himself a drink in front of a man already on a bender wouldn’t have been the best tactic, but hell if he couldn’t use a drink himself after the night he’s had. He settles back in his chair, glass in hand. Tom’s face is as peaceful as he’s ever seen it, the tension finally draining away from him in sleep. The rain picks back up, running its way down the roof to patter onto the sidewalk outside.

Roland swears his eyes only close a moment, but when they reopen, the sky outside is already coloring into the deep blues of early morning. The rain’s slowed back down to nothing more than a trickle. The whiskey glass is still clasped in his hand, one last swig lingering inside. Tom’s rolled onto his side in his sleep, arms tucked protectively around his chest, motionless except for the slightest twitch of his eyelids. Sighing, Roland rises from his armchair, swallowing back a groan of pain as his stiff neck twinges at the motion. He pours his glass out in the sink before flicking off the lights and heading to his own bed.

By the time the sun rises and Roland wakes to shuffle bleary-eyed out of his bedroom, Tom’s already cut and run. Without a car, it’d be a bitch of a walk back to West Finger; Roland supposes he grabbed a bus. There’s barely any sign that he was there to begin with — folded blanket and pillows stacked on the arm of the couch, empty water glass in the sink next to the bloody dishtowel, playing cards still fanned out across the coffee table. When he goes to grab his coat from the back of the armchair, his eyes catch on a patch of dried red-brown blood spattered across its collar. Roland sighs, running a thumb over its stiff texture. He’ll stop by the dry cleaners on his way into work.


	2. January 1981 (8pm)

Roland spits the last dregs of the blood in his mouth into the kitchen sink, washing the basin clean with a spray of water from the tap. Then he goes to pull the ice tray from the freezer. Tom’s leaned up against the counter across from him, picking at his cuticles. His eyes follow Roland’s hands as he twists the plastic tray one way and then the other, the ice cracking as it loosens.

“You wanna ice that?” Roland asks as he shakes a cube free to hold to his own bloodied mouth.

Tom tracks the movement, his gaze lingering a beat too long as Roland tongues the slowly numbing corner of his mouth experimentally. There’s a reddened spot on the edge of Tom’s jaw, half-obscured by stubble, that will no doubt darken into a bruise come morning. Roland supposes it’s nothing new for Tom, by now. Just another to add to the collection.

“Nah, ‘m fine,” Tom mumbles, his eyes dropping once again.

“Suit yourself,” Roland says. He wraps the ice in a paper towel to keep it from dripping down his arm as it starts to melt. His leg is aching something awful and he gives into the need to fall into one of the kitchen chairs with a grunt, letting his bad leg stretch out long in front of him. His ribs could probably use the ice, too, but he’s less worried about them since they won’t be on display for the whole station come tomorrow morning.

“You alright?” Tom asks as he seats himself opposite. He pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lights up without asking permission. By now he knows Roland’s house rules: smoking allowed, try not to throw up on the floor or bleed on the furniture.

Roland slides the ashtray across the table. “Just the usual shit.”

Apparently that’s all Tom has to offer in way of conversation because he falls back into silence. He keeps his focus on his cigarette, though Roland suspects it’s just something to occupy his nervous hands by the way he taps the ash off every couple of seconds.

“Fuck it,” Roland mutters to himself, pushing back up from his chair with a low hiss. He hobbles over to rummage in the cabinets. Tom’s got beer on his breath, as usual, but he seems far from plastered, so Roland pours two glasses of whiskey and slides one Tom’s way. Dropping back into his own chair, Roland grimaces. He grabs his folded coat from the back of the chair and fishes a pill from one of the inner pockets. Swallows it dry and chases it with a swig of whiskey. Tom eyes him, but wisely says nothing. Probably thinks he’s in no place to pass judgment. Roland knows he shouldn’t be behaving this way in front of him, but all he ever offered the man was his couch. Not like he intended to set some kind of shining example of good behavior.

Tom takes one last drag on his cigarette, his cheeks hollowing in a way Roland can’t help but watch. Then he’s crushing the butt out in the ashtray and blowing out the last wisps of smoke. He takes hold of his glass, but just stares into it instead of drinking. His eyes dart back to Roland. He seems cautious tonight, has been looking at Roland that way since the parking lot. Like he’s suddenly not too sure Roland’s not the one that really needs the looking after.

Roland snorts at that thought, ignoring Tom’s raised eyebrows. _What a sorry pair they make_, he thinks as he drains his glass. The booze lights up the bloody scrape of his mouth, the burn of it lingering. At this point, any other kind of pain is a welcome distraction from the monotony of his goddamn leg.

“This leg is driving me crazy,” he admits, lowly. He tries not to complain about it, especially not to Tom. He lost both his kids — hell, his wife and job, really — to this case and all Roland’s lost is some mobility. The doctor told him he could’ve lost the leg entirely and here he is, bitching about a little pain.

But when he glances Tom’s way, he’s looking at Roland with something like concern, his eyebrows furrowed. Tom leans back in his chair and says, “Maybe if you hadn’t broken that fucker’s nose on it.”

Roland barks out a laugh. “Suppose I was making a point at the time,” he says, grinning. He stands. “C’mon, I can’t take these fucking chairs anymore.”

He stops to refill his glass before following Tom into the living room. Tom looks startled when Roland drops down on the sofa next to him instead of sitting on the armchair. He kicks his bum leg out to rest atop the coffee table. Apparently, the difference in seating arrangements is enough to make Tom finally go for the whiskey. Roland hides his smile in his own glass. The pill’s kicking in, making the pain go fuzzy around the edges — between that and the whiskey, Roland’s buzzed enough to let his shoulder press against Tom’s. It’s the leg, he thinks, that’s really to blame for that. For any of this.

The night wouldn’t have landed them here otherwise. It’s just that, since the case ended, his leg’s kept him in some kind of law enforcement career limbo. Not like he can go around chasing leads and criminals with it slowing him down. He’s partner-less for the moment anyway, though he tries not to think about Wayne leaving him in the lurch. Has been determined to not think about since his voicemails have gone unanswered. _Ditched like someone’s bad date_, he’d thought as he checked his empty message machine yet again. So, he’s been chained to his desk, helping out the other detectives here and there. Getting antsy with growing boredom. Then, one night he’s talking over case notes with one of the guys in the lobby and there’s Tom Purcell, being led in handcuffs and looking none too happy about it.

“What do you think you’re doing, son?” Roland had asked, his eyes catching on the blood smeared across Tom’s chin.

“Putting him in the drunk tank,” the cop leading him had told Roland, wide-eyed and confused. He was new to the department, a fresh transfer from out of state. “He picked a fight over at Murry’s and then took a swing at me when I was breaking it up.”

Tom’s eyes slid away to a distant wall, like he was only embarrassed to be throwing punches at cops when Roland was around to hear about it. In the end, Roland had uncuffed Tom while the other detective had led the new guy off, muttering what was probably a summary of the Purcell case low enough that Tom wouldn’t hear. Roland had driven Tom home, Tom slumped in the passenger seat, rubbing at the raw spots on his wrists.

_Let me handle Mr. Purcell_, Roland had told his boss later, _it ain’t like I got anything better to be doing._ After that, the front desk knew to give those calls to Roland and no one had any problem with that, given he seemed to be the only cop Tom Purcell was willing to listen to. The calls came in sporadically. More often than not, Tom was just drunk and disorderly, prone to getting belligerent when the bartender of the week decided to cut him off for the night. A few fights since that first night at the Sawhorse. Roland had thought Lucy’s sudden departure from town would’ve put a stop to that particular problem, but Tom found plenty else to get angry about. A whispered comment, a sideways glance. Roland wished he would he quit it with the fighting — he was getting sick of the ache in his chest he felt every time he took Tom home with a fresh bruise on his face.

* * *

Tonight’s one of those nights. The bartender calls when the fight’s just starting to brew, must know Tom enough to make the call early. When Roland arrives, Tom and the night’s fighting partner are just outside the front door, already come to blows. Roland flashes his badge and breaks it up, but the other man stumbles after them through the dark parking lot, still hurling insults at their backs. Roland gets a firm grip on Tom’s arm as he makes to turn back around. He pulls him along between the shadows of parked cars. Keeps propelling him forward even as he fights against Roland’s grip.

“That’s right!” the man shouts. “Listen to your cripple boyfriend! You meet him out at Devil’s Den? We all know what you get up to, Purcell!”

“Fuckin’ let go of me,” Tom snaps, still trying to yank his arm free.

When Roland does release him, it’s sudden enough that Tom is caught off guard and stumbles. He catches himself against the side of a pickup, watching wide-eyed as Roland wheels around. The man from the bar is right behind them, startled by the move, though he quickly resumes his blustering.

“You got a problem, f—”

Roland slams his knuckles into his face. The man recovers quickly, throwing a half-assed punch that Roland easily side-steps.

“C’mon now,” Roland laughs, “you gonna let a cripple kick your ass?”

The man’s stupid enough to keep on fighting, probably spurred on by the fact that he’s got a foot of height, two working legs, and a good number of pounds on Roland, but he’s also wasted enough that his punches are easy to dodge, even with the bad leg. He gets a couple of lucky hits in, one to Roland’s ribs and another splitting the corner of his mouth open on his teeth, before Roland punches him twice in the stomach. Wind knocked out of him, the man drops to the gravel beneath. A kick to the groin with the tip of one pointed boot and he’s down for the count. Roland exhales, shaking his hands out. His blood’s pumping hard, the way it always does when he gets into a fight, adrenaline thrumming, like his skin itself is buzzing. He tilts his head, considering, before glancing back at Tom. He’s still standing there, motionless, looking all but dumbfounded by this turn of events.

“Do me a favor, will you?” Roland asks as he wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of one hand. “Hold him up.”

Tom eyes him, but strides over to yank the groaning man upright, his gaze fixed on Roland all the while. Roland gets a hand in the man’s hair to pull his head up by.

“Consider this a friendly warning,” he tells him before slamming his knee up into his nose. There’s the crunch of cartilage, blood spurting wet over his jeans. “Next time you wanna go around spouting that shit, take a look in the mirror.”

He drops the man’s head back down and Tom must understand they’re done here because he dumps the man back onto the ground to bleed into the gravel, groaning and clutching at his nose. They head for Roland’s car, this side of the parking lot mercifully empty. Usually Tom offers up some half-hearted bitching about how he doesn’t need Roland mothering him on these kind of nights, but tonight he’s silent as he slumps in the passenger seat. They make the drive in silence, but Roland can feel Tom’s eyes on him all the while. At a red light, he rolls down his window to spit a mouthful of blood out onto the asphalt before glancing back over. Normally, Tom’s not so good on maintaining eye contact, but tonight he just stares openly, brow furrowed.

“What?” Roland asks, chuckling.

“That shit gonna come back to bite you in the ass later? With the higher-ups, I mean.”

Roland grins as he turns his eyes back toward the road. “I don’t see how it would. Just yours and my word against his — he jumped you outside and then he assaulted an officer of the law on top of it. Self-defense is all it was. Did him a favor by letting him off with a warning.”

Tom snorts before lapsing back into silence. Roland turns his car in direction of his apartment — it’s unspoken at this point that’s where they’ll go. It’s always where he takes Tom on nights like these, when he isn’t about to leave him to sit alone in the emptiness of his house on Shoepick Lane.

* * *

“You know him?” Roland asks, setting his glass down on the coffee table. “Guy you were fighting.”

Tom takes a swig of his whiskey, nods. “Used to work together.”

“At the body works place?”

“Yeah,” Tom mumbles. “Can’t say I like him anymore now than I did back then.”

Roland couldn’t say if it’s the pill, the booze, leftover adrenaline from fighting, or Tom’s proximity that’s got his skin tingling, but he’s buzzed enough to loosen his tongue and ask, “Was he right?”

Tom looks at him in confusion. “About _what_?”

“You being a queer.”

Fear and anger flash across Tom’s face in quick succession before he settles on glowering, fingers gone white on his glass. He hunches over, pulling away from Roland, tensed like he’s a moment from jumping to his feet and storming out. “Fuck you—you think I—”

“Hey,” Roland says, easy, as he reaches out a hand to cup Tom’s stubbled jaw. “Not everybody’s out to get you, y’know that?”

That at least seems to startle him out of his anger. He stares at Roland as his thumb fans out below his lip. “You?”

“Yeah,” Roland murmurs, “same as you.”

It’s a stupid thing to do, to lean in closer — probably the last thing Tom needs, just another thing to feel guilty over, another wall to beat himself against, but there’s no denying where Roland’s thoughts have been headed lately, and it’s hard, when he keeps catching Tom’s gaze on him when he thinks he can get away with looking. He can’t lie to himself and say he doesn’t see it when Tom’s eyes stick on his bloodied mouth. That he doesn’t notice the way Tom reacts to his occasional touches, like he’s caught between leaning closer and pulling away. He already knows how Tom’s face looks in sleep, the kind of noises that slip from his throat when he’s dreaming. He’s knelt beside Tom on the bathroom floor to wipe his forehead with a damp washcloth, all the while Tom stared at him like —

He kisses the bruise on Tom’s jaw, stubble scratching along his skin. He kisses his way slowly up to Tom’s mouth, but Tom startles, flinching away when their lips finally meet.

“You alright?” Roland asks, pulling back.

“Just—men ain’t usually alright with that…that sort of thing,” Tom chokes out. He’s gone flushed across his cheeks and nose — Roland’s seen him ashamed before, humiliated, but not embarrassed like this. Shy, almost.

“What? Kissing?” Roland snorts. Tomorrow he’ll return to that, work it over in his mind that Tom _has_ been with men before, but for now he’s already leaning back in to whisper against Tom’s mouth, “Maybe you just ain’t been with the right ones.”

This time, Tom meets him halfway. He’s hesitant, a little sloppy and Roland’s not sure if that’s the booze, or if he just truly hasn’t done much kissing in his life. It’s good, though, especially when Tom pulls back to thumb over the split, bruising corner of Roland’s mouth before leaning in to follow up with his tongue.

“Detective West,” he mumbles against Roland’s jaw.

“Ah, hell, Tom,” Roland says, pulling back to shoot him a grin. “Don’t go calling me that unless you’re planning on asking me to cuff you, too.”

Tom coughs, looking scandalized. “Roland,” he tries instead, his voice wavering as he says it.

“Better,” Roland says, smiling. “You tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”

He lets his hand drop to squeeze Tom through his jeans, watching as his head tips back onto the couch with a low gasp. His eyes slide shut, lids trembling, like he’s scared to watch as Roland undoes his belt and gets his hand around his dick. He swallows hard, letting out a long, shaky sigh, but he doesn’t ask Roland to stop.

“Easy,” Roland murmurs, moving his hand slow. “That’s it. Christ, Tom.”

Tom’s quivering, like he’s fighting to maintain composure. Every sound he makes is bitten off, truncated. Even with Roland’s hand jacking him, he’s still tense and tightly wound. Roland lowers himself to the floor, careful to keep his weight off his bad leg as he gets his mouth around Tom’s dick instead. Tom doesn’t quite manage to bite back his groan this time. He lowers his hand slowly to Roland’s head, just rests it there, hesitant like Roland’s somehow gonna take offense to that when he’s already got Tom’s dick in his mouth. Roland looks up at him and finds Tom is already staring down at him. Just a few moments of eye contact and his eyes are twisting back shut as he moans and arches.

Roland swallows, pulls off and slides back onto the couch. He’s expecting Tom to pull away, not to lean in, eyes still shut, blindly seeking out Roland’s mouth. Roland groans into the kiss, letting his hands slide into Tom’s hair. They break apart, Tom still catching his breath.

“You’re bleeding again,” he mumbles, reaching out to wipe blood from the corner of Roland’s mouth.

“Can’t say ‘m too worried about that right now,” Roland says, with a lazy smile.

Tom regains his sense enough to at least zip his pants back up before putting a hand on Roland’s thigh. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “You want me to—?”

“Just this,” Roland says, getting his pants open before guiding Tom’s hand up. “Tom, hell.”

He leans back in to kiss Tom while he jerks him off. He doesn’t last long, was already halfway there just from touching Tom alone. He pulls his boxers back up after, but doesn’t bother doing up his jeans and belt, just holds them up with one hand when he stands. 

“C’mon, then,” he says, raising his eyebrows when Tom just sits there in confusion. “I ain’t making you stay on the damn couch. Come to bed.”


	3. May 1985 (4am)

It’s late by the time Roland falls into bed. The apartment is quiet and still, but worry’s still chewing a hole in his gut as he listens for any sounds from the living room. Nothing. He’s exhausted enough that he drops off to sleep in spite of his own worried mind. Doesn’t matter much when his bladder wakes him not more than an hour later. He rolls over to squint at the alarm clock on his nightstand, groaning. At this rate, he’d be better off standing vigil over the couch all night before rolling into work come morning. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s spent the night at Tom’s side. 

When he steps out of the bathroom, he hazards a glance out at the living room. Tom’s shape is barely visible, no more than a dark silhouette against the blue light filtering in from the window. He’s hunched over, elbows on his knees. One hand is worrying over the wrist of the other, like he’d been earlier at the table. He’d kept fiddling with the plastic hospital bracelet until Roland had taken the kitchen scissors to it and tossed it in the garbage.

Roland pauses in the doorway — Tom doesn’t seem to have so much as heard him, probably lost in his own thoughts and deafened by his own exhaustion. He hesitates. Tom isn’t the way he was four years earlier. He seems drained, like the fight’s all but gone from him. Even in the worst of times, when Tom had next to nothing left, he still had his anger. All those drunken fights years ago. He’d fought Roland, too, back then. Cursed at him, pushed him away, told him to fuck off and let him be. It had gotten easier after they’d started fucking, Tom pouring all his desperation into crashing his mouth onto Roland’s. Tonight, Tom didn’t so much as shrug Roland’s hand from his shoulder as he guided him along to the car. Mumbled his responses to Roland’s questions. Drifted along, his shoulder bony beneath Roland’s warm fingers. On the couch, Tom drops his head into his hands and sighs.

“Hey,” Roland murmurs as he shuffles his way into the room. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Tom mumbles, the exhaustion all too evident in his voice. His eyes are no more than a glint of light in the darkness as he looks up. “Used to just…drink ‘til I drifted off. Harder without the booze.”

Roland sinks into his armchair as his eyes adjust to the dark, the features of Tom’s face slowly sharpening into focus. Can’t help but think back to the first night Tom spent on his couch. Could just as well be that night, except for Tom’s hair. Roland had cut it after a dinner which Tom had pushed around his plate more than ate. He’d promised Tom he had some kind of idea of what he’s doing, having cut his own hair plenty of times, though he imagined Tom would’ve nodded regardless. Probably vanity was one of the last things on his mind. He’d pruned back the unruly mop of Tom’s curls, followed by taking his electric razor to the overgrowth that once had been a mustache. _Better_, Roland had said when it was done, but he wasn’t truly sure of that. Without the hair to shield him, Tom looks younger, but also exposed, sorrow and desperation written all too plain across his face. Nothing to hide the sad droop of his mouth. 

“Remember that night at the Sawhorse?” Roland asks.

It’s a stupid thing to bring up, as if it’s some kind of good memory — Tom getting his ass kicked with his son not more than a few days in the ground — but one side of Tom’s mouth lifts in something half-resembling a smile. 

“I remember you asleep still holding your glass,” Tom mumbles. “Good thing you at least put your cigarette out.”

“Shit,” Roland says, smiling. “I thought you’d slept through the night you were so out of it.”

“Hardly slept back then.” Tom shrugs. His eyes dart toward Roland. “Don’t think I ever thanked you for that one.”

“You ran off too quick to.”

“Didn’t wanna be in your way.”

“Tom,” Roland says, smiling, “you were never in my way.”

Tom swallows. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes are locked on Roland’s, searching.

“Look, you can stay on the couch,” Roland tells him, “or with me in the bedroom. I don’t mean that as a come-on, I just mean if you don’t wanna be alone right now, I’d get that. Whichever you want.”

Tom’s hands tremble where they’re resting on his knees, his fingertips white against the thin and faded flannel of an old pair of Roland’s pajamas. He’s been having the shakes since Roland brought him home. With sudden decisiveness, Tom pushes up off the couch and stands there, looking at him. Roland eases himself up from the armchair to head back to bed with Tom trailing after him.

They lie together side-by-side and motionless in Roland’s bed, the room quiet except for the faint sounds of their breathing. They stay that way until Roland feels Tom start to tremble beside him, shivering like he’s still cold beneath two quilts.

“Hey,” Roland mutters, rolling onto his side to look at him. He reaches out a cautious hand. His fingertips barely brush Tom’s arm before Tom’s sliding over to him, still shaking, pressing in close. He pushes his face into the hollow of Roland’s throat like he’s trying to hide there, his skin cold and clammy against Roland’s own bare skin.

“Easy,” Roland whispers, letting his arms close around Tom’s thin back. “I’ve got you.”

“…’m sorry,” Tom says, the words muffled by Roland’s skin. “I should’ve called you sooner. Shouldn’t have left at all.”

“It’s alright. You’re here now,” Roland says. Four years ago, he’d as good as begged Tom to stay. Came close to grabbing him and trying to convince him with his mouth and less words, right there on his driveway, in full view of Tom’s neighbors peeking through their curtains, but he’d had a feeling that had been half the reason he’d decided to leave in the first place. He’d stood there and watched him drive away, instead.

“I just wanted to run from it. All of it. Didn’t do me much good, though.”

“You ain’t the first one to figure that out,” Roland murmurs. He slides one hand up to squeeze the back of Tom’s neck, pressing his thumb into the tense muscles there. “Can’t say it ever did me much good, either.”

“What’d you ever have to run from?” Tom mumbles.

“Ran here from Texas and never looked back,” Roland says, smiling against Tom’s hair.

“Feel like I barely know you. You’ve got my whole life story’s away in some file.”

“Maybe there just ain’t that much to tell,” Roland says lightly. At Tom’s faint snort of disbelief, he adds, “I grew up on a ranch out there. Did rodeo.”

“I’d’ve never guessed,” Tom deadpans. His mouth twitches against Roland’s neck in what might be a smile when Roland reaches up to flick his ear. “Tell me about it?”

“Well,” Roland starts, his breath rustling Tom’s freshly cut hair with every word, “My first go at it would’ve been…’64. County fair. Let me tell you, standing there waiting my turn, I was just about to piss myself I was so damn nervous.”

He keeps kneading the back of Tom’s neck as he speaks, feeling as he unwinds by degrees, his shoulders relaxing. The sky’s gradually lighting outside. Tom stays where he is, his face tucked against the front of Roland’s shirt, not falling asleep, but his breathing slowing, evening out, like he’s in a half-sleep sort of daze. Roland’s eyes keep slipping shut, but he keeps talking, even as the birds start to sing outside. He supposes in a couple hours, he’ll drag himself out of bed to call in sick to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've recently started trying to cut my own hair and thus determined that roland cutting his hair himself explains everything about his haircut circa 1980.


	4. December 1986 (10pm)

“I—I almost went in, y’know? I got as far as the door before I asked myself what the hell I was thinking and turned around,” Tom mumbles, pulling a hand through his curls. Slight tremors running through his hands like back when he was going through withdrawal. He’s planted in the doorway, looking lost again, set drift and looking for an anchor. Head down and eyes cast away like he’s ashamed to once again be asking for one in Roland.

“Come on in,” Roland tells him. He stands aside for Tom to step past, then shuts the front door against the night’s chill.

It’s hardly the first time since his return to Arkansas that Tom’s come by in this state. Going on a year’s worth of weekly AA meetings and attempted sobriety, slip-ups here and there. He’s got an older sponsor that Roland’s met once or twice and who he doubts is the first person Tom turns to when he needs a helping hand. He’s no longer dragging Tom home with bruises on his face and beer on his breath, but now and then, there’s this. Enough that Roland’s more or less got a routine in place. Two glasses of water — it helps if Tom’s got something to do with his nervous hands, something to drink even if it’s only water. If they’ve each got a glass, it’ll make Tom feel less awkward about it. When he shuffles back into the living room, Tom’s already on the couch, looking at the little Christmas tree stood in the corner. Its twinkling lights reflect onto Tom’s face, colors shifting over his pale skin.

“Lori insisted,” Roland explains as he sets down the glasses. “Told her I hardly got the room for it, but I guess we managed it.”

Tom sips at his water as his eyes shift across the living room, like he’s noting all the little signs that Lori’s been there. The paperback on the coffee table she’s been working through, one of her jackets by the door, hung up beside Roland’s cowboy hats. Roland’s expecting it when he opens his mouth to apologize, “I shouldn’t have come by like this. This late, I mean.”

“Hey, I told you I was alright with you stopping by whenever you need. Anyway, I was still up. It’s fine, Tom.” Roland leans back in his own chair, pulling his cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He offers one to Tom before lighting them both.

They sit together on the couch, smoking in silence, the television set playing on mute across from them, Christmas lights casting their colors over the coffee table. There’s the low creaking of the bed from down the hall, the same way it always creaks when you roll over in a certain spot. Tom startles, nearly dropping the cigarette from his fingers.

“It’s just Lori,” Roland sighs. He hadn’t been planning on mentioning it unless he had to. “She was already in bed, don’t worry ‘bout it.”

“Shit,” Tom mumbles. He reaches out to crush his cigarette out in the ashtray. “I shouldn’t be here. I should go.”

He pushes up from the couch, but Roland’s already expecting it and beats him to the punch. He stands in front of Tom, blocking him in between the coffee table and the wall.

“Hey,” Roland says, grabbing hold of Tom’s shoulders. “Look, you insist on leaving, I’m gonna pick a fight about it and then we’re gonna get loud and wake Lori up. So, how about you just settle back on down?”

Tom’s mellowed since he’s laid off the drinking. In the past, he’d have fought Roland on this, shoved past him anyway. Now, he only shoots a nervous glance over Roland’s shoulder, like he’s expecting Lori to be camped out in the darkened hallway, watching them.

“C’mon, man. You know she’s fine with you being here. Just sit back down.”

Tom does as he’s told, but warily. He was always skittish around her. Lori being Lori, she doesn’t take it personally, just assumes it’s how he is with everyone and not that Tom’s always avoiding her out of some kind of misplaced guilt. As if they had their hands on each other any moment she looked the other way, and not like they’d ended things prior to her own re-entrance into Roland’s life. For a moment there, Roland had thought they’d ended everything, friendship included, but after a month of radio silence, he came home to find Tom sitting and chain-smoking on his front doorstep like he’d never left.

Tom rubs a hand across the back of his neck, hunching over. He unwinds a fraction when Roland knocks their elbows together and shoots a lopsided smile Tom’s way. They continue to sit together in mostly silence, eyes on the muted television like they’re paying it any mind. Roland would ask what’s got Tom worked up tonight, but there’s no need to. He knows the yearly cycle of things, how Tom winds up as the months creep toward November and how his blues drag into the Christmas season. He’s seen the faded polaroids Tom keeps tucked safe in an envelope. A handful of photos of Will and Julie opening presents. Has heard him talk with bittersweet fondness of their better Christmases, the ones where him and Lucy weren’t at each other’s throats. The season’s reminders will drag into January.

When he suggests that it’s already late and Tom should just stay the night, Tom acquiesces with a slow nod, like he hates to accept the offer, but nowadays is well aware he’ll be better for it. Roland knows it’s harder for Tom to talk him out of drinking when he’s alone in his trailer with no one to remind him why he shouldn’t. He’s got some idea of it himself, with how he was drinking in his empty apartment after Tom had put a stop to things between them and before he ran into Lori at the IGA.

“Well,” Roland says, smacking his palms on his thighs before pushing up from the chair, “better try to catch some sleep.”

He turns to head to bed, figures he better pull himself away from Tom’s side before his thoughts turn in a direction they shouldn’t. Before he goes and does something he’ll likely regret, pushing things right over the carefully drawn line of their friendship. 

There’s the creak of the couch springs. Roland stops as Tom’s cold fingers encircle his wrist.

“Roland,” Tom says. His eyebrows are drawn up and together, his forehead creased with worry the way it is, even nowadays, still more often than not. “Thank you.”

Roland smiles at him. He wants to reach out and touch his shoulder at the very least, but he keeps his hands motionless at his sides. “’Course, Tom. Night.”

He turns off the twinkling Christmas lights and makes his retreat back to his dark bedroom, where Lori is a still shape beneath the covers on her side of the bed. He thinks Lori’s still asleep, but as soon as he shuts the bedroom door, she rolls over toward him, her eyes catching a glint of light from the window.

“Was that Tom at the door?” she murmurs sleepily to him as he slips into bed beside her. “Is he alright?”

“Yeah,” Roland tells her. He slips an arm around her as she presses close. “You know how he gets around this time of year. I told him he could take the couch tonight.”

“Mm, alright,” Lori mumbles against his skin.

She drifts easily back into sleep as Roland holds her, stroking her hair mindlessly, trying not to think too much about Tom just in the other room.


	5. July 1988 (6pm)

There’s something up — Tom’s been off since he showed up at the front door. Lord knows Roland can recognize when Tom’s trying to hold it together by now. It’s got Roland running through possible reasons all through dinner. Every year as November approaches, Tom’s carefully pieced together facade cracks a little, but that’s months off. Roland wonders if Lucy’s made one of her sporadic calls again. She’s been known to do that from time to time, usually just when Roland thinks she’s finally gone for good. Roland wishes she _would_ fuck off for real already. After her last call, Tom was off-kilter for weeks after and wouldn’t tell Roland exactly what she had gone and said to get him that way. Roland hadn’t pushed the issue. He figures he’ll ask Tom what’s up when they’ve got a second, probably when he’s walking him down the steps to his car — every time Tom insisting _you don’t gotta walk down all these steps for me_, and every time Roland shrugging him off. That’s the moment he reserves his usual question of _how you been, Tom_ for. It’s different from when he asks it in front of Lori, when Tom responds with _work’s been keeping me busy_ or _just been handling a few projects around my place_ before offering the polite, tight-lipped smile he’s managed to cultivate in the past couple years. When it’s just him and Roland, he lets the worn tiredness show plain on his face and says I’m holding up with a little twitch of the corner of his lips. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s the truer of the two expressions and Roland likes it the better for that alone.

It’s as the meal’s winding down and Roland’s taking the last sip of his sparkling water — they don’t do wine when Tom’s around — that Lori beats him to the punch.

“Tom, are you feeling alright? You don’t look so good,” Lori says, her voice as gentle as ever as she slides a worried glance toward Roland at her side.

“Sorry,” Tom mumbles, setting down his fork to rub at his temples, “been building up to a migraine all day.”

“Shit, man, you could’ve called up and canceled. Didn’t have to drag yourself over here in pain on our accounts,” Roland says, though internally he relaxes at the explanation.

He doesn’t like seeing Tom in any kind of pain, but at least the physical is an easier fix than the alternative. Like the year before, when he’d caught a nasty flu. Roland had stood side by side with Lori in the kitchen, cooking up far more soup than one man could possibly consume alone, which he’d delivered to Tom in a stack of Tupperware containers. Tom had opened his front door looking awful, hair tangled and blurry eyed, in rumpled sweatpants and a sweater. _You’re gonna catch this shit from me_, he’d said, squinting at the soup containers that Roland neatly stacked in the fridge for him. _It was Lori’s idea_, Roland had said, holding up his hands. Tom had managed to look both guilty and touched in one expression.

“Didn’t want to cancel twice in a row,” Tom says with a rueful smile. “It’s fine, think I’ll just have to call it a night a little early.”

“Oh, Tom,” Lori says, frowning as she sets down her fork. “You can’t drive all the way home like that.”

“She’s right, man,” Roland agrees, thinking of Tom making the long, dark drive out of Fayetteville alone. “Why don’t you lay down in the guest room ‘til it passes. Spend the night.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Tom mumbles, pushing himself to his feet like that little motion alone doesn’t make his eyebrows knot together.

“C’mon, I insist,” Roland says, rising from his chair to grab Tom’s arm before he heads out the dining room.

“Really, it’s no problem at all,” Lori says, trailing alongside Roland.

“I swear it’s fine—”

“I don’t wanna be called in at two in the damn morning to help scrape you off the road if you crash. Consider it a personal favor.”

“Roland—”

“I’ll cuff you if that’s what it takes,” Roland jokes.

Tom snorts, shooting him a bleary sideways glance. He holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright, fine.”

“Good man.” Roland claps him on the shoulder.

Lori smiles, barely grazing her fingertips on Tom’s arm. “I’ll see if we’ve got aspirin in the medicine cabinet, okay?”

Roland leads him out of the dining room and down the hall to their spare bedroom. The summer’s been hot and humid so far, but after dusk, with all the fan spinning lazy circles above, it’s bearable. He doesn’t bother switching on the lamp on bedside table — there’s enough light filtering in from the rest of the house to see by. Tom sags against the wall as Roland sets about tossing throw pillows off the bed and pulling back the covers. 

“Shit, only time this room gets used is when Lori’s sister comes around for the holidays. You’ll be helping us get our money’s worth outta it,” Roland says as he pats the mattress and steps aside. “C’mere.”

There’s the soft sound of Lori’s footsteps down the hall as Tom settles onto the edge of the bed. She smiles as she enters, setting down a glass of water and a pill bottle on the bedside table.

“They’re nighttime ones — so maybe they’ll help you sleep at least. Oh, and here,” Lori says, pulling a set of folded clothes from under her arm, “they’re Roland’s so they should fit you.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Roland responds, patting his stomach.

Lori knocks her elbow against Roland’s side and rolls her eyes with a smile. “Feel better, Tom. Let us know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you, Lori,” Tom says, soft and polite, though still with the vague undercurrent of nervousness he always seems to have around her. He’s better about it than he was in the past, capable of holding an entire conversation with her over dinner without resembling one of Roland’s witnesses sweating it out in the interrogation room.

“Night, Tom,” she says before slipping back out of the room. 

“C’mon,” Roland says. He unfolds the clothes and tosses them onto the bed, listening to the muffled sounds of Lori moving around further back in the house.

Tom’s tired eyes lock onto his as he shakes out one of Roland’s old shirts, grey and worn soft around the collar. His gaze slides away as he untucks his shirt from his jeans and sets to unbuttoning it. Roland lets himself watch as Tom pulls off his undershirt — he’s put on weight in the past few years, gone a little soft around the middle. He’d had the beginnings of a beer gut back in ‘80, but after he’d up and disappeared, he’d returned to Roland scrawny. He remembers how his fingers used to catch on Tom’s ribs back then, after he’d checked him out of the hospital. How he’d found himself cooking for Tom at every opportunity, shaking his head at himself as he stood in front of the warm stove. Every time, childhood memories of his own grandmother’s voice would rise unbidden: _you’re too skinny, Roland! Eat, eat!_ Tom had been worn down enough back then that he’d let Roland get away with it in a way that he wouldn’t have five years prior.

Tom toes off his shoes, then unfolds the pair of Roland’s sweatpants. He hesitates. Roland turns away and busies himself with collecting the bed’s discarded throw pillows into a neat stack in the corner until he hears Tom set his clothes on the nightstand and sit back down on the bed. When Roland turns, he’s not expecting the way his heart lurches at the sight of Tom in his clothes. Looking like when he was staying at Roland’s old place in ‘85, shuffling around the apartment in clothes that hung a little baggy on his frame, face pale and hands trembling more often than not. 

He blinks tiredly up at Roland, his slicked back hair now mussed. Sometimes, looking at him, Roland finds himself feeling a little nostalgic for the unruly curls Tom had once had — when his thoughts turn in that particular direction, he knows it’s high time to get himself away from Tom before he goes and does something stupid (once, walking Tom down the steps to his car, he’d asked _you think you’ll ever grow a ‘stache again_ to which Tom had only shot him a sideways glance, his brow furrowed). Maybe it’s seeing Tom in his own clothes, or looking too long on the man’s hair, that has him step closer than he should.

Tom watches him, his Adam’s apple bobbing along his stubbled throat, but he doesn’t pull away. Roland reaches out his hand, easy, like this is still normal between them. Like the extent of the touches between them nowadays is more than just friendly pats on the back and short, brotherly hugs. He cups Tom’s jaw, lets his thumb drag down and over the line of his throat to feel his pulse jumping beneath as Tom’s eyes slide shut. He exhales slow, shuddering, his throat moving beneath Roland’s hand.

He thinks, briefly, of leaning down and kissing Tom. Isn’t sure how long it’s been since he last did, but he hears of the faint sounds of Lori down the hallway and so he doesn’t. He drops his hand to squeeze the warm junction of Tom’s neck and shoulder instead, then releases him. Tom’s eyes flicker open.

“Get some rest,” Roland says, forcing himself to step away. “I’ll be here in the morning.”

Tom gives a silent nod and pulls his legs up and under the covers as Roland slips out the door and closes it behind him. He hopes Tom will still be there when he wakes up. Nowadays, he thinks he’d be willing to settle for just this — Tom here, in their guest room, a breath and a staircase away, instead of only seeing him now and then, and hardly ever alone.


	6. May 1990 (4pm)

He’s already half-buzzed when he makes the drive over to West Finger after work. There’s a stack of nested cardboard boxes beside him in the passenger seat, a roll of garbage bags and a paper bag with clinking glass inside. He focuses on the road. He’s trying his hardest not to think of Tom’s mother on the phone. No matter how many times he pushes it from his mind, it keeps coming back — her sobbing traveling down hundreds of miles of phone lines to reach him where he was sat behind his desk, grip gone white-knuckled on the receiver. Her husband aimed for stoicism when he took over the call, but there was an all-too-noticeable splinter in his voice. Roland doubted his own had fared much better. Once, Tom’s mother had took Roland aside and told him — well, it hardly mattered now, did it? The guilt clenches in his stomach like a cramp. He fishes a bottle from the bag in the passenger seat and takes a swig.

The gravel driveway out front of Tom’s trailer is empty, his car probably off in some police warehouse. It’d been left unlocked where it was parked in one of Devil’s Den gravel lots, a box of bullets rattling around on the passenger’s seat. The neighborhood is as peaceful as ever as Roland lets himself in the front door. The air inside is stale from several days of being closed up. He doesn’t bother opening the windows — the calm outside, the cool breeze, feels wrong. He sighs, setting down his boxes on the kitchen table and pulling the bottle of whiskey again from its paper bag. One long swig and then he gets to work.

Packing up Tom’s things doesn’t take as long as he thought it would. It’s easy enough to figure out what his parents will want to keep. Tom’s last living family to take his things — no children, no wife. When his parents die too, Roland wonders what will become of the possessions he’s setting into boxes. Photographs gone soft and worn at the edges, Tom’s well-thumbed Bible. There’s the last ghostly reminders of Will and Julie — an old Father’s Day card signed in crayon, a few faded toys, the baby album Wayne had pulled from their shelf tens years prior. Roland tries to keep his drunken hands steady as he removes Julie’s crayon drawings, paper gone brittle and yellow with age, from the fridge door.

The mundane stings far more for Roland. There’s the cans of cola lined up neat in the fridge, Tom’s go-to after he quit drinking for good. The half-empty shaving cream in the medicine cabinet brings to mind leaning in the bathroom doorway of his old apartment, watching Tom shave. A few months into sobriety, his hands finally starting to steady. At the time, he’d been thinking how much he wanted Tom to stay, but knowing that wasn’t likely to happen, saving the image like a snapshot in his mind. Now, with the pain of the memory aching low beneath his ribs, he almost wishes he hadn’t remembered it at all. The neat rows of Tom’s closet, every article of clothing bringing back a memory, short or long — Tom at his kitchen table in that shirt, Tom beneath him with that shirt half-opened, the shirt Tom had worn the last time he’d seen him prior to the case getting reopened. Stupid, the things the mind bothers hanging onto.

He sits at the kitchen table to pack Tom’s earthly possessions into the boxes, keeping the whiskey close at hand. Swigging from it while surrounded by Tom’s sobriety chips and AA books feels wrong, but not enough to bring himself to stop. Tom never took so much as a sip of alcohol in the trailer, except maybe at the very end there. He can’t know if Tom’s parents will find comfort in knowing their son stayed sober for the last five years of his life. No need for them to know he lapsed there, at the last moment. Roland spreads out the photographs across the table, flipping through them as he drinks. There’s one of Tom and Lucy on what must have been their wedding day — Tom in a dress shirt and jeans, Lucy in a faded sundress. He wonders who took the photograph, who their witness was that day. If they’d been happy, for a brief moment there together. If Lucy had ever loved Tom the way he himself had, even for a little while. Funny to think of himself having something in common with Lucy Purcell.

He tapes up the boxes and sets them aside. He’ll label and mail them down to Louisiana in the morning. At least he won’t have to face Tom’s parents in person. He doesn’t know what their plans are for Tom’s body — he doesn’t want to think about it. He sure as shit doesn’t want to think about being invited to the funeral if there is one. Isn’t sure he could manage standing in a suit next to them, knowing what he’s done. Over the phone, Tom’s father had thanked him for offering his help, not knowing if anyone’s to blame, it’s Roland. How could he know? He’d only met Tom’s parents twice — during the investigation, and then later, after Tom had gotten sober. It’d been before him and Lori’d gotten back together. Tom had roped him into coming by his place for Thanksgiving, knowing Roland had no place in particular to be. He’d been wary, thinking his presence would only bring back bad memories, but Mrs. Purcell had pulled him aside while Tom had been busy in the garage with his father, her expression serious.

“I wanted to thank you,” she’d said, “for what you’ve done for Tom. For a while there, we thought were going to lose him too. He’s our only child. After Will and Julie…I don’t know what we would’ve done.”

Roland shakes it from his mind, focusing instead on throwing back the last of the whiskey.

He’s only left the bedside table to be gone through. Maybe the whole reason he’d offered to pack up the place to begin with. He doubted Tom’s folks were completely in the dark about their son, but that didn’t mean they needed to have it confirmed this way. He tosses the condoms and lube into a garbage bag, no twinge of jealousy the way there had been when he’d first dug through the drawer. No denying that’s how he’d felt at the thought of Tom under another man’s hands. Stupid. Then the goddamn flier. Like the man couldn’t have peace in any aspect of his life. Roland breathes out a long, slow sigh and forces the thought from his head. Returning to the task at hand, he reaches for the last object in the drawer: a framed painting of Jesus, dusty and long forgotten. He scoffs as he pulls it from the drawer. As he lifts it, the backing of the frame slides loose.

“_Shit_,” he mutters, as the whole thing falls apart in his hands. He grabs for it as it tumbles, only for the glass to slice a line down his palm. It hits the edge of the open drawer and bounces to shatter into pieces at his feet.

He curses louder than he means to, something snapping in him at the sight of the glass (_can’t touch any goddamn thing without fucking breaking it, can you_ his mind whispers). He punches the bedside table, hard.

The blood from his cut palm spatters across the floor at the movement, over the broken shards of glass and Jesus’s white robe. Red on white — the blood spray across Tom’s undershirt, drying in streaks and tacky puddles across the worn wooden planks, the flies already landing on his still, pale face. The smell of stale booze and the very beginnings of decomposition settling into the air. Roland feels the bile start to rise in his throat and pushes his way into the bathroom. Leaves a bloody smear on the toilet lid as he lifts it to vomit into the basin. There isn’t much to come up besides coffee and whiskey. Hasn’t eaten anything solid since Lori forced half a bagel on him before he left the house early that morning. He hangs his head over the toilet, trying to even his breathing, but all he can think of is every time he helped to drag Tom’s drunken weight to his bathroom before he threw up on the carpet. The time he’d first wiped Tom’s hair back from his cold, clammy forehead and held a damp washcloth to his pale skin. How Tom had looked up at him with those wary, sad eyes. Before the Purcell case, he wouldn’t have said you could fall in love with someone when they’re drunk on your bathroom floor with bile running down their chin, but he’d managed it. He barks out a laugh that cracks into a sob before he’s leaning back against the sink crying, his whole body shaking with the force of it.

He doesn’t know how long he’s down there on Tom’s bathroom tiles. Thinks he might actually black out for a while, after his eyes run dry, only to reawaken still on the floor. His hand is throbbing, blood dried in smears across his palm and drips of it on the white tile. He feels empty now, drained, like the ground is sucking his body down to meet it. Even pushing himself back up to stand is an effort. He’s exhausted, and too damn wasted to make the drive back to Fayetteville anyway — last thing he needs right now is a DUI, not after showing up at work bloodied, beaten, and hung over. He’s seen the looks the guys around the station have been giving him. Knows they think he’s cracking up, losing it, drinking on the job, starting shit with the higher-ups. He ain’t sure they’re wrong. Besides, the last person he wants to see right now is Lori, with her sad, sympathetic eyes. Still that sympathy there, even as Roland pushes her further away.

He climbs onto Tom’s bed from the side free of broken glass and curls up, doesn’t bother to so much as remove his shoes. He drifts, sleeping in short fits to find the room a little darker each time he awakens. In the unfamiliarity of Tom’s room, his head fuzzy with drink and hunger, he can he can almost picture Tom lying across him, though they never spent the night together here. He thinks of the first time he’d dragged Tom into his own bed, how he’d awakened in the night at the feeling of the mattress shifting as Tom readied himself to get up from bed.

“Hey,” Roland had mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep, mouth stale with whiskey and the metallic taste of his own blood. “Where you going?”

Tom had frozen on the edge of the bed, looking over his shoulder in the dark at Roland. He’d shrugged his bony shoulders, the edge of his furrowed brow barely visible in the darkness. “I thought I should…” He trailed off, head lowered, but Roland had some idea of what he was thinking. _Get my clothes back on and sleep on the couch. Pretend like this didn’t happen. Walk myself back to West Finger alone at three in the morning. Anything to get myself out of here before we wake up together and sober._

“C’mon,” Roland whispered. He reached out a hand to Tom’s bare back, tracing the backs of his bruised knuckles down Tom’s spine. Tom went stiff-backed and tense under his touch as Roland hooked his hand around Tom’s arm and tugged him back down onto the bed. “It’s late.”

He’d eased Tom back onto the mattress beside himself, pulled up the covers back over them both. Tom’s shoulders finally dropped as Roland fit an arm around him to pull him close again, not so much relaxing, but giving in. They lay there in silence except for the creaking of the bedframe as Tom shifted closer, pressing his cold face to Roland’s neck. Roland slept as time passed, but Tom lay motionless yet awake in his arms. He didn’t know how long he had drifted asleep for, but when he woke up again, Tom was still there, but his face was wet where he was pressed to Roland’s bare skin.

“Hey,” Roland whispered, digging his fingers into Tom’s back, “what’s the matter?”

“It’s my fault,” Tom had mumbled into his chest, trembling. “I should’ve been there. Should’ve been watching them.”

He’d said it plenty of times before, but it still pinched Roland’s chest up every time. He never knew what to say to that — there was nothing, really, that could be said.

“Shh,” he’d murmured back anyways, tightening his grip, as if he could hold Tom any closer than he already was. “Don’t think about it, Tom. Just sleep, alright?”

In the present, Roland lies on top of Tom’s rumpled bedding, left in disarray from whenever Tom had last gotten up from the bed. His chest aches, but he’s not sure he even has any tears left in him. The last living image he has of Tom’s face — the crushing realization of betrayal so plain across it as he stared across the table at Roland — frozen in his mind, Tom’s mother’s words echoing over it all: _What you’ve done for our son. For Tom._ The silhouette of the body laid out across the steps of the ranger tower above him, obscured by the bright morning light, the only thought in his head _it must be somebody else_ playing over and over with every slow, limping step he took up the stairs. Seeing Tom’s still form and thinking back to how he’d refused to sit down in ‘80 when Roland had told he should, his face going paper white so suddenly that Roland had to grab his arms and lower him to the living room carpet out of fear he was about to drop. _Easy, Mr. Purcell_, he’d said as Tom gripped Roland’s wrists tight and asked, his voice frantic and cracking, _you’re sure it’s Will?_

In the darkness of Tom’s trailer, he imagines Tom beside him, propped up on one elbow. 

_It’s my fault_, Roland whispers to him. Or thinks, he’s no longer sure.

_Shh_, Tom says, _just sleep alright?_

Eventually, he does. 

* * *

In the morning, he wakes hungover and sick. He curses when he rolls off the bed only for glass to crunch beneath his shoes. He cleans himself up and bandages his hand before going back into the bedroom to sweep the glass up. He tosses the frame and picks up the painting. Something slides free, hidden between it and the frame backing. He picks up the scrap of paper. It’s worn from being unfolded and refolded over the year, but his old apartment number’s still there in faded ink. He rubs his thumb across it and tucks the paper careful into his shirt pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written while listening to [Sleepyhead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmBkoWRRoV4) on repeat. Thanks for reading! <3


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